Good morning people as we still go through this pandemic. Until we can return to some form of normalcy, a few months ago, I completed my stream of The Last of Us Part II series on my YouTube channel, Antzombieslayer. In my experience, I had moments of joy, moments of anger, and extreme moments of frustration. I’ve only played this game once through and was curious to see where fans and journalists were pulverized on the decisions made in the sequel. People either seemed to completely love or hate this game. Nothing ever seemed more black and white before. As you know, the first installment was highly and critically acclaimed from all forms of media and from its fanbase. Without the success of the first one, we would’ve not had part 2. Here is my brief review.

The Last of Us Part II begins roughly 5 years after the events of The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie have made themselves comfortable in the town of Jackson, WY. Ellie is about 19 years old and a shell of her former comedic self. Her relationship with Joel seems nearly non-existent at this time. Then immediately after, tragedy hits, and a major character gets killed off which sets the story of the game in motion. We get the addition of some new characters: Abby and Dina. The graphics, sound design, and gameplay are major achievements. I had a lot of fun dispatching clickers, runners, stalkers, and bloaters while using stealth to take out groups of marauders. Also, the crafting and upgrading system was satisfying.

However, the story is executed in such a mess. They make you play as another character for half of the game. This other character you play as is someone who killed off this major character at the beginning of the game. The game really tries to get you to like this new character, but for people that played and loved the first game, it seems to punish its fans like the last season of Game of Thrones. Essentially, the story of this game is about the cycle of revenge and tries to teach us a lesson that killing is bad. I think the majority of decent people know that murder is wrong, but when we try to get into a story and root for one character, we want that person to succeed to the end. When that doesn’t happen, it is depressing and a major waste of 20 something hours of gameplay and story.

However, I had nothing wrong with the sense of female empowerment and the representation of LGBTQ in the game. I believe that was interesting. That should not be the issue. A game should make it fun for the player and reward the player with a good storyline. I don’t agree with it winning all of the awards at the 2020 Game Awards and believe that ponytailed Neil Druckmann (the creator) was smoking something strong when writing this story. As a writer myself, the format of the story is clunky and confusing between flashbacks, flash-forwards, and character’s switched perspectives. The characters are very somber and altogether the story comes as a depressing experience. There is one time where they make you try to kill another character you were just playing earlier in the game. Was Neil Druckmann trying to complete a social experiment in video game rage?

If I had to rate this game out of 10 severed clicker heads. I’d give it between a 6.5 and a 7 out of 10. I think the gameplay accounted for the majority of its higher score. The voice acting once again was phenomenal by Ashley Johnson as Ellie, Troy Baker as Joel, and Laura Bailey as Abby. And as an aspiring voice actor, I can truly respect the time they spent acting out these intense scenes. I believe the game should have been nominated for only certain things only. But, 2020 was filled with other video games which were much better in my opinion. To get the full experience and spoilers check out the 13 parts of my stream below. Thank you and if you haven’t already done so, subscribe and hit the notification to Antzombieslayer, it always helps the channel grow. Also, for those who played and completed this game, let me know what you thought in the comments? Was it the worst game you’ve ever played? Was it the greatest game you’ve ever played or somewhere in the middle? Thank you for your support.

Let me know what you thought of the streams. Please leave a like, comment, and subscribe to my channel, Antzombieslayer to become a survivor. Thank you and continue to stay well and healthy during this time.